crystalhallfandomcom-20200216-history
Spider-Rats
Spider-Rats. Starring in the cult hit Spider-Rats From Space, which generated at least four sequels. Jade has seen two of them, Spider-Rats VChristmas Elves: Fey and Jade's Holiday Havoc, and later the original black and white classic, Spider-Rats From Space!Jade 9 - Sit In Spider-Rats V It was Troy Reilly who had the idea of watching Spider-Rats V. He and his big brother used to stay up late on holiday weekends, watching horror movies, each one worse than the last, as a bonding ritual. If Nikki really is his former big brother, she'll be up for it. At least that's his reasoning. Nikki's reaction? "Bring it on! I've seen real eldritch horrors, nothing Hollywood can come up with will faze me!" Riiight. Hollywood does pretty good at this kind of thing. Add slightly uncontrolled magical powers, and... :There, regarding them calmly, was a creature the size of an extra-large potato. It had matted black fur, like a rat, with eight black, insectile legs springing from its misshapen body. The pointed head was also rat-like, save for the glowing red eyes and the gleaming black mandibles of its alien mouth. The naked pink rat tail lashed behind it like a whip. They're out of band-aids. And Mrs. Reilly isn't sure how to explain the teeth-marks on the furniture. And the drapes are all raggedy-edged now. But she's more understanding about the need for someplace like Whateley. But those were accidental hobgoblins, the uncontrolled kind. If deliberately summoned, spider-rats can be useful... not controlled, precisely, but still, you can aim them, and give them a proper attitude... and if you've been through enough, that may be just the attitude you're after! :So the newly supercharged mage gathered a large portion of energy (enough to give any of her teachers a heart attack, had they been there to see), shoved it into her hobgoblin-maker, and squeezed. :-- POP! -- :Something appeared at her feet. A black hobgoblin. It was about six inches long, vaguely rat-like, except that it had eight hairy insectile legs and a set of horizontal, clacking, pincher-like mandibles instead of a mouth. It scurried about in a way that was deeply disturbing. :POP! POP! POP! POP! :Four more appeared. Then a dozen more. Then a hundred. Then five hundred. Nikki scrunched her eyes and gave one more squeeze, forcing all the energy through her hobgoblin-making spell. :Then she opened her eyes and gasped in alarm. :“Goddess!” :In a circle that stretched twenty feet in every directions around her, the hobgoblins were piled three feet deep. It was a writhing, swarming carpet of alien terror. As one, the horrid creatures turned and stared at her with beady little glowing red eyes. :“Well?” she demanded. She pointed out with one finger, toward a half-dozen enforcers that were shooting off their rifles. “There’s the enemy! Go get ‘em!” :The carpet seemed to melt and flow forward like a spider-legged tide, sweeping toward the enemy forces. Spider-Rats From Space! So there you are, babysitting for the Amazing Three, and you get bored. Hey! Let's watch a movie! Look, they have Spider-Rats From Space! It's safe, Nikki isn't here, so no hobgoblins. Just Jade, Tennyo, Jinn and a baby. :The end credits flickered to life, and Jade and Billie realized that they had their arms wrapped tightly around each other. In acute embarrassment, both released the clinch and seemed to teleport to opposite sides of the couch. :Billie gave a forced laugh. “Ha ha! Pretty stupid, wasn’t it?” :“Oh, yeah,” Jade agreed. “Not the least bit believable.” Her eyes scanned the shadows in the far corners. “Spider-rats! What a stupid idea!” :“You said it! There’s no way that real teeth could be that strong! And what kind of animal explodes when it dies?” :“Right!” Jade strove to make her voice sound believable. “Totally stupid. Like I’m so sure that the face is the most delicious part of the body.” A baby. What could be more harmless? Laying there on the carpet behind the couch, viewing all it can survey with remote controlled secondary eyes, busily gnawing through the wall into the control room with manifested rats... Wait. Remote controlled secondary eyes? Manifested rats? This is no baby, this is the demon Phesclangorenthal! Whose quite taken by the spider-rats. Finds them aesthetically pleasing. Agrees with their culinary tastes. Who, while Jade and Tennyo are doing the J-team mega-spa, summons many, many, many spider-rats. Just for them. Waiting outside the bathroom door. Eagerly. Four hundred of them. :“Huh?” Billie dropped to her knees. Her hand lashed out, grabbing another biting, clawing rat-thing. She idly squished it into goo. :“They’re ectoplasm…” She reached for another. (Squish) Idly, she licked the goo off her fingers. :Jade fired off a couple of more quick shots from her pistol. “I definitely need a gun with a bigger magazine! But I think we’ve got them, oneesan! They’re starting to flee!” She turned around to look at Billie and screamed. :Tennyo, the terror of Whateley, was on the floor on her hands and knees. Around her were the broken and mangled bodies of rats, many of them slumping into piles of goo that resembled nothing so much as steaming, fetid entrails. Her arms and legs were coated in the mucous-like slime, and her eyes had a slight glow. Perhaps worst of all was the hind section of a rat, which still protruded from her mouth. :Jade screamed again. :Feeling a sudden rush of horror and self-revulsion at her strange and inexplicable appetite, Billie tried to talk around the object in her mouth. :“‘S not like it’s a real rat,” she defended. (Her garbled words came out more like “weal wat.”) “’S more like a … gummy rat. Yeah. Lovely, lovely candy.” :Billie made this worse by quickly chewing and swallowing the hind quarters, then slurping the long pink tail into her mouth like a strand of spaghetti. :“See? All gone!” :Jade just gibbered in shock. :“Oneesan, how could you!” :Billie tried in vain to use the big-eye defense to justify her ghoulish appetite. “But… they’re so good!” :Jade was almost in tears. “But we just finished washing you off!” :Billie blinked in confusion, not realizing that she was licking off her fingers. “Wait. You’re upset because I got dirty? Not because I’m eating ghost rats?” :Jade looked back with a look of stern, eleven-year-old disapproval. “Honestly! Sara’s appetite is much worse, and that doesn’t bother me. But I wanted you to have a nice spa, and now…” She began to sniffle. :Billie felt an overwhelming rush of relief. “Oh, is that all? It’s just ectoplasm. It evaporates in a couple of minutes.” She looked at the carnage that surrounded her. “Man, I wonder if we can get the cafeteria to serve some of this?” :Jade stared at Billie. Billie stared at Jade, and tried to wipe off one slimy hand. At the door, a tsunami of spider-rats paused, staring at them both. :Billie stretched her hand toward Jade. “Uh, care for a rat?” :“Ew! No thanks! But don’t let me stop you.” She reached into her purse. “Ketchup?” :“You know, I am feeling really … hungry!” :The rats in the doorway blinked as one. Billie lunged forward. Each and every one of the spider-rats … turned and fled! Four hundred ectoplasmic spider-rats, tasty spider-rats, all for Tennyo. Yum! References Category:Terminology